**Please join FAUN and NY4WHALES as we enlighten the public about the
dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. We will honor the dolphins which have
been, and will be killed in the annual slaughter that takes place from Sept.
to about March…..we honor, as well, all the dolphins that are held captive
around the world.**

Sept 1st signals the start of the Taiji dolphin hunt. During the hunt
season, Sept through March, large numbers of dolphins will be driven into
the cove at Taiji, these dolphins will either be sold into captivity, or
slaughtered for meat.

Oceanic Preservation Society:

"Fishermen round them up by the hundreds using sound barriers to disorient
and herd the frantic pods out of their normal migrations into hidden lagoons
like the one featured in The Cove. Bottlenose dolphins, especially ones that
look like Flipper, are pre-selected by trainers and sold off for upwards of
$200,000 to marine mammal parks around the world, where they will remain in
captivity performing as circus acts. After the trainers and spectators have
left, the rest of the dolphins are inhumanely killed in what can only be
described as a massacre.

The butchered dolphins are later used for food, but the Japanese government
has intentionally sheltered people from the dangers of eating them.
Consumers of dolphin meat run the risk of mercury poisoning due to high
levels of the toxin within the animals. Adding to the danger, much of the
pricier whale meat they purchase is actually mislabeled toxic dolphin meat.
While the Japanese government defends dolphin hunting as part of their
cultural heritage, this tradition has serious health effects on its own
people.

The more lucrative captive dolphin industry is the driving economic force
behind the dolphin slaughter in Taiji. In the U.S. alone, dolphinariums
represent an $8.4 billion industry, while a dead dolphin fetches a mere
$600. International law provides no protections against the killing of
dolphins, and other slaughters occur in places outside of Japan. The
International Whaling Commission (IWC) affords no protections for 71 (out of
80, known) cetacean species, including all dolphins and porpoises, which is
why Japan and other countries can legally kill them by the tens of
thousands."

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